Policy recommendations

  • The European Union must ensure that its Energy Policy will not harm the food security of the urban and rural poor in developing countries, whose daily survival is threatened by substantially higher food prices. It should draw up a strategy to ensure the urban and rural poor are compensated for higher food prices before installing mandatory levels of biofuels;
  • The European Union should abolish its domestic subsidies and import tariffs for biofuels, in order to allow developing countries to profit from the trade opportunities biofuels offer;
  • The European Union should draw up comprehensive sustainability criteria for biofuels, including more ambitious standards for greenhouse-gas reduction a slight decrease of emissions as compared to fossil fuels is simply not enough and the protection of biodiversity and carbon-rich ecosystems;
  • The European Commission should include social criteria in its review of the Biofuels Directive to guarantee that the rural populations who live off marginal lands and forests are not hurt by expanding agricultural production;
  • The European Union should stimulate local processing and the use of sustainable biofuels in developing countries. Small-scale farmer cooperatives should be stimulated to prevent the benefits from biofuel production from only falling into the hands of large-plantation owners.

Case: Biofuels

28-11-2011 EUs policy on biofuels questioned by MEPs

On behalf of the DEVE committee, Michèle Striffler (EPP) posed a question to the Commission on the EU biomass policy and its impact on development. Referring to the targets for renewable energy that the EU has set to have by 2020 a 20% share of energy from renewable sources in the EU final consumption of energy and a 10 % share of energy from renewable sources in each Member States transport energy consumption, she expresses her concerns on the possible negative environmental impacts of these targets, like deforestation. She therefore asks the Commissions what measures will be taken to ensure sustainable biomass production, to protect forests and to prevent negative climate, environmental and social impacts from the use and production of biomass for energy.

MEP João Ferreira (GUE/NGL) points out that the demand for palm oil have risen world wide. One of the reasons for that is it can be used as a source of energy. Producer firms have moved to equatorial African countries, among which also many developing countries, to acquire large plots of arable land to increase the production. The large-scale planting of palm trees however endangers forest ecosystems and the biodiversity. MEP Ferreira asked the Commission what steps will be taken to prevent the production of biofuels from raw materials extracted from biodiversity-rich an high carbon-count land, thereby referring to the directive on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable resources. Moreover he asks the Commission how it will take the EUs development cooperation and aid policy into account.

Another side of the biofuels issue is addressed by MEP Franz Obermayr (NI), who focuses on the human and social side. He shows how the European targets for biofuels, trigger large companies to move to Africa for fertile land. Using the case of the Omo Valley in Ethiopia as example, he points out that this development causes tens of thousands of indigenous people being robbed of their livelihoods, as they used to make their livings in those fertile areas. As the Ethiopian government leases land to foreign companies (i.e. Fri-El Green (Italy) and Sun Biofuels (UK)) to grow biofuel crops, the people who used to live there are being expropriated. MEP Obermayr shows a clear incoherency and asks the Commission if there is a way to produce alternative fuels without depriving people of their livelihoods.

Fair Politics welcomes the questions of MEPs Striffler, Ferreira and Obermayr in which they show the incoherency of the European policy on biofuels with their development objectives. All MEPs are granted one point each in our monitoring system towards the Fair Politician of the Year.

Monitor fair: EPP, GUE/NGL, NI

Parliamentary questions
22 September 2011 O-000212/2011
Question for oral answer
to the Council
Rule 115
Michèle Striffler, on behalf of the Committee on Development

Subject: EU biomass policy and its impact on development

In April 2009, the Council of the European Union adopted a directive establishing a common EU framework for the promotion of energy from renewable sources (Directive 2009/28/EC). The aim of this legislative act is to achieve by 2020 a 20% share of energy from renewable sources in the EU's final consumption of energy and a 10% share of energy from renewable sources in each Member State's transport energy consumption.
While the Directive seeks a significant increase in the production and use of biomass for energy with a requirement to double its share by 2020 there is no strong framework in place to ensure the sustainable production and use of biomass for energy. In addition to this, woody biomass has a potential detrimental effect on forests in developing countries since it might entail the conversion of natural forests, wetlands, etc. to biofuel feedstock plantations.
What are the measures that the Council intends to take to ensure that biomass used for energy is sustainable and is consistent with sustainable management of forests, both within and outside the EU?
How will the EU biomass policy meet the obligations accepted by the Commission under the Voluntary Partnership Agreements on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT), the climate change commitments within the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) framework and the Nagoya Declaration on Biodiversity in Development Cooperation?
How will the Council ensure a coherent policy that will protect forests and increase their resilience to climate change by developing criteria that prevent negative climate, environmental and social impacts from the use of production of biomass for energy?
Does the Council have any information as to how much biomass for energy production is already imported and from which regions it will come in the near future?

Parliamentary questions
12 July 2011 E-006815/2011
Question for written answer
to the Commission
Rule 117
João Ferreira (GUE/NGL)

Subject: Threat to equatorial African forest ecosystems from palm oil production

A number of factors have contributed to rising world demand for palm oil, among them the fact that this product can be used as an energy source. According to Malaysian researchers, consumption of this raw material increased by some 5.2 % last year while production rose by only 1 %. The world's main producers of palm oil, i.e. Malaysia and Indonesia, are faced with a shortage of arable land for increasing production. The result is that producer firms have now rushed to establish themselves in equatorial Africa, where they have sought and acquired large plots of land, in countries including Cameroon, Liberia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria and Uganda. It is known that this phenomenon, and the associated conversion involving the large-scale planting of palm-trees, represent a threat to key forest ecosystems which are home to an enormous biodiversity and play a vital functional role, especially in biogeochemical cycles including the carbon cycle.
1. Is the Commission aware of this state of affairs, and what is its evaluation of it?
2. What action can the Commission take to ensure that biofuels used in the EU are not produced from raw materials extracted from biodiversity-rich or high carbon-count land, in line with the directive on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources?
3. Can the Commission state to what extent account is being taken of this situation in the EU's development cooperation and aid policy?

Parliamentary questions
14 September 2011 E-008192/2011
Question for written answer
to the Commission
Rule 117
Franz Obermayr (NI)

Subject: Biofuel from Africa

Shocking pictures showing hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the devastating effects of the famine in Africa can be seen in the media. At the same time, large fertile areas of Africa are being bought up by international concerns, on which instead of food agricultural raw materials for producing biofuels are being grown. Directive 2003/30/EC sets a target of increasing the proportion of biofuels in the tanks of European vehicles to 20 % by 2020. The negative impact of this target can be seen, by way of example, in the fertile Omo valley in Ethiopia, which has already been turned into a biofuel plantation. Around 90 000 indigenous peoples who used to make their living from arable and livestock farming in this region of the lower Omo valley (a Unesco world heritage site) have been robbed of their livelihoods. According to reports by Survival International, an international human rights organisation, the Ethiopian Government is expropriating people on their own land and leasing the land to foreign concerns to produce food crops for the export of biofuels (for example, the state concern Kuraz Sugar Project and the Italian company Fri-El Green, which is producing palm oil for biofuels on 30 000 hectares in the Omo valley).
1. How does the Commission view these negative developments in Ethiopia?
2. How might a way be found of producing alternative fuels whilst, at the same time, seeing to it that people in certain regions of the world are not deprived of their livelihoods?
3. What efforts is the Commission making to address this situation?